Racial and Racist
Stereotypes in Media

Not all stereotyping is bad. Stereotyping arises out of the need to generalize in order to make sense
out of a very complicated environment. It allows people to easily
categorize new things into comfortable spaces already defined by their
experiences. This process was described in 1922 by Walter Lippmann, who
first coined the term "stereotyping." Lipmann wrote, "the
attempt to see all things freshly and in detail, rather than as types and
generalities, is exhausting, and ... practically out of the
question."

Societies construct hierarchies of value
and power so that some races are perceived to be more dominant and others
are subordinate. We sort people into different races based on
genetic traits: skin color, hair color and texture, and facial features.
What these different racial categories mean to us is a product of social
collaboration. We are conditioned to believe that people are defined by
race and so we draw boundaries between the various races and police those boundaries.
Ethnicity, like race, is socially constructed. Ethnicity incorporates
race, but expands beyond it to include religion, nationality, heritage,
and cultural practices. A single racial group may consist of dozens of
ethnicities. As with racial groups, some ethnicities are culturally valued
while others are devalued.

Negative stereotyping arises out of an
ethnocentric view of the world; ones own group is the center of everything
and all other groups are rated in reference to it. Negative stereotypes
are prejudicial judgments that assign negative qualities to other groups.
Repeated exposure to negative stereotypes causes those who are being
stereotyped to internalize the stereotypes. This internalization damages
character by causing low self-esteem, low expectations, low motivation,
self-doubt, etc. And in turn this damage contributes to a host of
bad outcomes, such as high unemployment, poor marriage success, low
educational achievement, and criminality. Through this process, negative
stereotypes can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Repetition tends to normalize stereotypes, because
repeating stereotypes validates and perpetuates them. Because stereotypes often contain a "kernel of
truth" (they may be characteristic of some or many members of a
group) they are widely accepted as the truth. However, specific tendencies
that may be widespread among a group should never be applied to every
member of a group. That's because the stereotypes generalize individuals
within a group, emphasizing sameness and ignoring individual variety.

The repetition of racist stereotypes can be used to justify actions that would normally be unimaginable,
as was the case with Germany during World War Two. Hitler's anti-Semitism
could never have precipitated the Holocaust if Germans didn't already have
a long history of anti-Semitic beliefs and actions. The repetition of
negative racial stereotypes about Jews and other so-called
"undesirables" ultimately propelled
ordinary Germans to systematically kill millions of innocent men, women
and children.

Negative racial stereotyping was used by all sides during
the Second World War to demonize enemies. Racist stereotypes were also
used to justify a steady stream of civilian deaths and
crimes against humanity, and the US was certainly no exception. The
firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo as well as the atomic bombs that were
dropped on Japan caused human slaughter on a massive scale. Ordinary Americans
believed these actions were justified because of the negative
stereotyping of America's enemies that preceded the war, and the more virulent
forms that emerged during the war.

The media uses stereotypes as a shorthand method of
defining characters in ways that are easy for people to identify and
categorize. What these stereotypes all have in common is that they reduce to a one-sided, superficial and exaggerated depiction the real variety,
depth and complexity of a people. The media today is more sensitive to issues of culture and gender than it once was, but
the creation and perpetuation of common misconceptions about groups of people
continues. Oversimplified and inaccurate portrayals have profoundly affected how we perceive one another, how we relate to one another and how we value ourselves.

There are stereotypes for all races, but not all races are victimized or discriminated against because of those stereotypes. Since
media is still mostly controlled by whites, they have the power to act on their racial biases to a much greater extent than any other race.